UF seeks state money for reading program piloted in 'failure factories'

TALLAHASSEE — University of Florida education researchers are seeking state funding to pilot an intensive reading program that has garnered preliminary success in two troubled Pinellas County elementary schools.

At the invitation of state and local leaders, the UF College of Education’s Lastinger Center for Learning recently intervened in two of the five south St. Petersburg schools that were deemed “failure factories” in a high-profile Tampa Bay Times investigative series, which was published starting in August.

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For 28 days, beginning in October, a team of UF educators worked with 20 Campbell Park Elementary School third, fourth and fifth graders after school at a local church. During the UF-funded program, researchers evaluated the students’ grasp of three critical reading skills before and after the program. Students' success improved by 75 perent to 100 percent.

The researchers decided the program would work better during the school day, before students were tired. So they shifted their focus to launching a new morning program at the Melrose Elementary School. This month, they began working with the school’s 30 lowest performing readers and will conduct the full 90-day intervention.

In 2014, 13 percent of Melrose third graders passed the state’s reading exam while 18 percent of fourth graders and 11 percent of fifth graders passed.

Because Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature have already begun crafting the 2016-17 state budget, the UF researchers are hoping their preliminary results are compelling enough to convince lawmakers to allocate funding to implement the program on a larger scale.

Lastinger Center director Donald Pemberton said he is in talks with lawmakers about piloting the program in from five to 15 schools in three different districts, with the total cost not exceeding $1.5 million.

“We feel confident we’re going to be able to demonstrate outcomes,” Pemberton said. “Legislative leaders and community leaders are interested in demonstrating: there’s nothing wrong with the kids. We just need to have a different approach to teach them out to read.”

Pemberton said schools often excel at teaching reading comprehension and vocabulary. But if students don’t know the fundamentals of phonics, they won’t succeed as readers. The UF program teaches students decoding, a process that includes seeing words, breaking them down into individual sounds and then articulating the sounds.

Lawmakers are considering UF’s request.

Rep. Erik Fresen, a Miami Republican who chairs the House education appropriations subcommittee, said he plans to push for $1.125 million during negotiations with Senate leaders on the final state budget.

A spokeswoman for Senate President Andy Gardiner declined to comment, deferring instead to Sen. Don Gaetz, Fresen’s counterpart in the upper chamber. Gaetz did not immediately return a request for comment.

Pemberton said it was possible the funding could come out of an existing pot of money that supports an extra hour of reading instruction in each of the state’s 300 lowest performing schools. The initiative is a Senate priority and has been championed by Sen. David Simmons, a Winter Park Republican.

The Senate included $709.8 million for supplemental academic instruction, some of which funds Simmons’ program, in its budget plan. That’s a nearly $61 million increase from the current budget. The House proposed close to $657 million, which includes a smaller increase of about $8 million.

Fresen said he expects funding for the existing program and UF’s pilot to be “tied.” But “my druthers would be not to rob Peter to pay Paul,” he said Wednesday.

During a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning, Rep. Marlene O’Toole, a Lady Lake Republican, touted UF’s preliminary successes in the Pinellas County schools and said she planned to lobby her colleagues for funding to support an expansion.

O’Toole also encouraged Pinellas County lawmakers to fundraise for the schools.

“I think the delegation needs to continue to be engaged down there,” she said. “They’re in need of books down there. These little children that didn’t read before, never took a book, now they want a book. And maybe your delegation can give a little fundraising pitch, go out there and raise some money to buy books and send them home with those children. Because children can read, and we’re just very happy with that.”

“We toured three of the five schools that were in the newspaper. I won’t bore you with all the details other than to say, they buy ink by the barrel, and they like to print,” she said then. A spokeswoman for the newspaper declined to comment at the time.